But he with a chuckle repliedThat "maybe it couldn't," but he would be oneWho wouldn't say so till he'd tried
As the sun dawned on Sunday, the 7th of February, 2016, they still said “it couldn’t possibly be done”. The phrase felt oh!-so familiar to the Foxes. And yet, the context couldn’t be more different. Where a year back the whispers had been dark and pessimistic, today they are full of awe and wonder. How a year can change things.
Leicester City, 5000/1 to win the league when it all started back in August, are now five points clear at the top of the table, after having absolutely smashed title-challengers Manchester City 3-1 the day before.
They had led the table for the first three weeks of the season, and it had been cute - “Aww, look at that! Last season’s strugglers are on top!” Then when they dropped to sixth by the end of September it looked like things were being straightened up – but they went on the rampage again and were back on top by November.And they have stayed there. It is no longer cute.
The story of this season has rapidly become one with the plucky underdog as the lead character, and not just an interesting sideshow.
Leicester City Football Club certainly fit the ‘underdog’ tag to the T. In the 132 years of their history, they haven’t won the nation’s top division once. The last time they came close was nearly 90 years ago when they finished second in ’28-’29. The last time they put up a challenge was in ’63-’64; they finished fourth, but the Ice Kings are the stuff of legend.
Individually, they have the characters that could easily make the cast of any good feel-good sports tale. A goalkeeper finally throwing off the shadow of an illustrious father and making a name for himself (Kasper Schmeichel), centre-back partners who were dismissed as the epitome of good-for-Championship-only-but-out-of-depth-at-the-top (Wes Morgan) and over-the-hill (Robert Huth) but are now feared by everyone.
Then there’s a winger who was once touted as potential superstar material then faded away but is now turning one consistent performance after the other (Marc Albrighton), and a midfielder who graduated from the academy of the biggest team in the land, didn’t once take the field for them and is now running the Foxes midfiled like an old Don (Danny Drinkwater).
And also players who have gone from a ‘what-was-his-name-again’ to some of the hottest properties in world football (Mahrez, Kanté, Vardy).
They are even endearingly old-school – Ranieri rewarded the team for keeping clean sheets by buying them pizza!- and their owners are a wonderfully fan-friendly lot who celebrated finishing top on Christmas by plying the patrons at the King Power stadium with free beer! These are things that simply don’t happen in today’s sanitised, ultra-professional football milieu.
This isn’t a movie. This is real life.
And in real life money and power always come up top. Foxes are hunted; it doesn’t work the other way around. Foxes can run fast, and think faster, but the hunters keep coming back with bigger guns and better hounds. The Big boys, the Establishment, will come at any pretender with all guns blazing – “You can be good, but you can’t afford the best – can you?”
Manchester City had forked out around seven times more for Raheem Sterling (~49 million) than Leicester City had for their entire starting eleven. Elite sport at the highest level is most often decided simply by who have the most – in the backrooms; for that is what translates directly into who has the most on the pitch.
That’s why Barcelona and Real Madrid, PSG, Bayern Munich, the big 4 in England (the Manchester clubs, Chelsea and Arsenal) always seem to end up on top. That’s why it’s all too predictable these days.
And that’s why what is happening with Leicester City is so damn important. Football was crying out for them.
Football, and indeed all Sport, is nothing without that x-factor of unpredictability. It is what fuels dreams and feeds magic into mundane, everyday lives. It is what makes sports so beautiful; just the existence of the possibility that, for once, the little guy can win.
Next season, Lionel Messi could be trotting out to play a Champions League game against the Champions of England at the King Power Stadium in front of 30,000 who had only a couple of years back played host to Yeovil Town FC.
If that doesn’t make you believe in the magical power of sport, I doubt anything will.
Here’s to dreams, football, and Leicester City Football Club
Somebody said that it couldn’t be done But he with a chuckle repliedThat “maybe it couldn’t,” but he would be one Who wouldn’t say so till he’d tried.So he buckled right in with the trace of a grin On his face. If he worried he hid it.He started to sing as he tackled the thing That couldn’t be done, and he did it!
Somebody scoffed: “Oh, you’ll never do that; At least, no one ever has done it;”But he took off his coat and he took off his hat And the first thing we knew he’d begun it.With a lift of his chin and a bit of a grin, Without any doubting or quiddit,He started to sing as he tackled the thing That couldn’t be done, and he did it.There are thousands to tell you it cannot be done, There are thousands to prophesy failure,There are thousands to point out to you one by one, The dangers that wait to assail you.But just buckle in with a bit of a grin, Just take off your coat and go to it;Just start in to sing as you tackle the thing That “cannot be done,” and you’ll do it.
- Edgar A. Guest
